One of the things that I hate about being disabled with autoimmune diseases is that being ill is different. For one, if a regular person is ill for seven days then I will be ill for closer to fourteen. Ridiculous. Growing up it was even harder because back then in Scotland, diabetes fed their insulin. I took set doses at set times and then set amount of carbs around that. It didn’t matter if I was unable to look at food. My insulin could not be changed and in the time of mixed insulins, you literally couldn’t separate your basal from your bolus. I remember many times sipping down Lucozade for ‘dinner’ and hoping I wouldn’t throw it up and then have the conversation of ‘how much do we think you absorbed before you spewed? cause if none it is another bottle of torture for you’.
Even now though it can be hard. Staying hydrated is hard and more difficult for diabetics than ableds. And even if our blood sugars are ok, dehydration can send us to DKA city very quickly indeed. And that shit kills fast.
That is is why even before plague times, being scoffed at and told ‘it is just x, y or z’ illness galled me. For you maybe? Not for me. For me, this cold could become a fight to the death. And that is before you factor in that everything is more likely to go into my chest than yours and pneumonia fucked me the fuck up when I had it the first time. Round two was only marginally better. And that was vaccinated. If I hadn’t been vaccinated I would have been in hospital no doubt.
This is brought to you by day ten of tonsilitis which just feels excessive. And I’ve tested negative for covid but at the same time I feel paranoid about testing. I’m trying to protect our supply given restrictions are to be lifted and prices introduced.
I just feel there is something deeply revealing about a person, in a disturbing way, when they say ‘it won’t be that bad’. I survived pneumonia and now have to take an inhaler every morning and the slightest cough opens the scars on my throat and lungs and I taste blood. But I survived right? The worst of times really do bring out the worst of humanity.
endocrinegremlin.wordpress.com 